The trends and events that have led to the recent development of the Internet Protocol (IP) over dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) architectures are presented in this article. The need for such architectures arises from the overlapping functionalities that are provided in the current layered architectures. The issues encountered in such architectures and the proposed solutions in the standard committees to solve them are discussed. The issues that require further research attention are also identified.

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